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why it’s been moved to the Bailey. Local prejudice and all that.”
    We sat in silence for a while trying to think of things to say. Generally I trusted Emma’s instincts, but I thought she was
     wrong about Justine. Justine had become rather depressed after Sarah Morrow’s suicide. The gloom would not lift. Depression
     became illness and Justine left the Bar for two years. When she returned, she gave up defending.
    “Another bottle?” I said.
    “Look, I like partying. But not during a trial. We’ve got a murder tomorrow. Or have you forgotten your appointment with Mr.
     Justice Manly?”
    “Half a bottle?”
    “Work, Tom.”
    “A glass?”
    “All right then, you old soak. But we’ve got to discuss the case.”
    Emma took out a bundle of photographs. They were of the dead body. I knew the prosecution would introduce them the next day.
    “So,” she said, “what are we going to do about these, Tom?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Brilliant, Tom, you’re just so full of enthusiasm for this case. I mean, can’t we object or something? They’re so prejudicial.”
    “The jury has a right to see—”
    “What? A pre-pubescent girl mutilated on a stone with a muslin dress over her head?”
    “She was sixteen, Emma.”
    “I know, but have you noticed how all those Stonebury women look the same?”
    “No,” I replied.
    “Well, take Sarah Morrow. She was the same. Thin as a rake and no breasts. I mean, haven’t these people heard of puberty?
     They’re just like the landscape around there.”
    “Why?”
    “Even the hills are flat. And all the women have got that same countryside sort of look.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know, like Twiggy on horseback. Inbreeding, perhaps?”
    “No,” I said. “Too little pollution and too many turnips. Can’t be healthy.”
    “Talking of vegetable matter,” Emma replied, “have you seen? Davenport is over there with—”
    “No.”
    “Liar,” she said. “Are you going to get some more wine or what?”
    In those days, of course, that was precisely the type of question that I found far easier to answer.
    Pushing through the crush in Johnson’s was a delicate art-form, one they should have taught in Bar school. There were so many
     legal toes to avoid treading upon, so many professional backs to scratch. I pushed past barristers deploring the vices of
     alcohol, past others propounding the virtues of oral sex.
    There was dark wood everywhere and some prints from
Vanity Fair
. The rest of the wall-space was taken up with mirrors. The clientele was predominantly legal and male. The bar staff was
     female. The air buzzed with extraordinary forensic triumph and tragic, but courageous, defeat. No one believed what anyone
     else said, but that didn’t matter. The telling was all.
    As I approached the bar, I saw Justine. She very pointedly ignored me, still smarting, no doubt, from our confrontation in
     court. She talked to the officer in charge of the case, Inspector Stanley Payne. Next to them, Davenport was puffing at his
     cheap cigarette between telling everybody about his brilliant opening speech and lining up a young pupil for the taxi ride
     home.
    Justine looked so small compared to Davenport. I suppose the effect was exaggerated because she still had girlishly blond
     hair. She looked younger than her thirty-five years. I remembered what Emma had said about Molly Summers, and I suppose Justine
     also had that same Stonebury look. She was very slender. I could never work out whether that meant that she was fragile or
     resilient. Was she more like a piece of cane or a dry twig? If I pressed her, would she bend or would she break?
    I returned to Emma with another full bottle and she didn’t seem to remember the terms of our compromise. She finished jotting
     down some notes for the next day, and put them in her wicker bag.
    “Who was to blame?” she asked me without blinking.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Rubbish. Who was to blame, Tom?”
    “To blame for